Discovering right tools for Custom Post Types in WordPress with David McCan – SWC 31

Custom Post Types, custom fields, conditional logic can be an overwhelming topic for a lot of WordPress users. However, now these are easier to implement with the help of plugins.

David McCan explores which plugin to use on the specific type of website projects for custom post types, custom fields, and conditional logic. A lot of amazing tools in consideration, Pods, Beaver Themer, Toolset, Crocoblock suite and more.

Discovering right tools for Custom Post Types in WordPress with David McCan

01. Registering CPTs

Traditionally, the majority of users would register or add a custom post type using the manual code in the functions.php file. But now, there is a shift of using plugins for the same – any specific reasons or advantages you see in this change?

There are a lot of plugins for registering custom post types like Pods, MetaBox, Themify Post Type Builder, Toolset, Crocoblock Suite and so on. Which is your favorite tool for adding CPTs to a WordPress website?

How to decide, if I need a CPT for a specific type of content as against just using the default posts or pages and maybe adding Custom Fields to those?

02. Adding Custom Fields

ACF, Pods, Toolset … different tools provide different custom field types. Should my plugin choice change depending on the type of custom fields that I need to add?

For adding custom fields, ACF Pro is a popular choice and there are few others like Pods, MetaBox, Toolset and so on. Which is your favorite tool for adding custom fields to registered CPTs?

What about adding custom fields to default posts, pages or CPTs created by other plugins like product CPT created by WooCommerce plugin? Which is your preferred solution for this?

03. Creating Template & Conditional Logic

The biggest problem for non-geeky users is to create templates that output the custom data held in custom fields and custom post types. Hasn’t a new breed of plugins made this very easy as compared to manually coding of such templates?

Since I am a Beaver Builder user, Beaver Themer addon makes it so easy to output any type of data in any templates design. However, for a non-Beaver user – which is the best option to create templates for custom data?

Now advanced conditional logic is required when you are building something complex. To display such advance conditional logic data in the front end, we definitely have fewer options restricted to Beaver Themer, Pods and Toolset. Which solution has worked best for you in this regard?

04. Which solution to choose

OK, bottom line. Which one is the best? Of course, my vote is for Pods. What do you think: Beaver Themer, Pods, Toolset? Is Elementor an option?

Thinking on a broader level, should one consider using WordPress when building complex conditional logic based data structure website or use some other platform?

David McCan ToolBox

Stencil (getstencil.com) to create graphic images for social media.

Use Content Studio (contentstudio.io) for posting on social media platforms.

About David McCan

I have a Ph.D. in Anthropology. I made my first website more than 20 years ago. It was for the Miami-Dade Public Library System in Florida.

I’ve worked as a DBA, network admin, developer, IT manager, etc. In terms of web development, for about 9 years (2000-2009) I was the sole person who created and maintained two very active eCommerce websites.

During that time I also wrote other web and desktop programs. After that, I eventually become a contract programmer in 2015. I have been working as a C# programmer.

Around 2012 started learning Drupal and built some sites using it. Around 2013 switched to WordPress. I like learning how things work and helping people online, using YouTube, etc. Did a website with my wife and maintain several sites.

My New Year’s resolution for 2018, was to begin thinking about developing my own project based income. One of the first serious steps was to join Content Creators Group by Kim Doyal a year ago. I had the goal to make $1 online in 2018. I made about $1700 through affiliate marketing.